Had We All The World Below
by korel.c
Summary: It is 282 PT, and sky pirates are everywhere. Kurt Hummel is kidnapped by the most feared pirate gang; only one man has the balls to get him back. And he will. Eventually.
1. Prologue

**Had We All The World Below**

* * *

_over the clouds._

Over the clouds, a ship flew. Its deck, stained in all the shades of pink and violet, a permanent sunset around them. Two figures, on the deck.

"Are you sure?" the young girl asked.

The older, taller boy rubbed at his recently shaved head.

"What choice do I have?" he asked, and shouldered on his rucksack.

The ship passed through a bank of clouds, coating the view in fog. When the ship burst out from it, a vista of clouds spread out beyond them, like the hills and valleys of land - not that either had seen land since they were born.

"Fuel?" the girl asked. "Food? Water?"

"No, sarah," the boy said. "Don't worry. I'll be fine."

"You're all the family i have!" Sarah said, and clung to her brother. "Please, Noah, please, don't leave me!"

"It's Puck, remember," Puck said, his eyes narrowed. "You'll be fine. Mom actually likes you."

All was still but for the steady _thump-thump-thump _of the propellers and the hiss of the steam engine below.

And the world was spread out before him.

Sarah looked up from her hug. "...Beautiful," she gasped. She buried her head into puck's chest again.

"Yes," Puck said. "I know...Mom can be restrictive...but this is the world that i want to make my way in." He wrapped his arms around his sister.

They breathed together, in the thin air of the heights.

"Don't die," she said, finally.

Puck smirked. "As if death could catch me."

Sarah favored him with a glare.

"Is that any way to treat your favorite brother?" Puck asked, slowly disentangling Sarah's arms from around him.

"You're my only brother," Sarah shot back.

"True," Puck said, and stepped free.

"Please don't die," Sarah said. "I'm serious. there're pirates...and it's a rough world, Noah."

"Puck," Puck said, and closed his eyes. "I know, Sarah. Be a good girl, now."

His boots were tightly laced; on the coarse deck, he turned sharply, and faced to the end of the deck and the end of his childhood and the end of this life.

"Goodbye," Puck said, and ran.

He spread his arms wide to the permanent sunset sky, to the grandiose sun, and copper wires snapped out of his rucksack and bound themselves to his wrists. gears grinded into action all along the wire and formed the familiar gauntlets around his hands.

He clenched his fists at his sides and a column of flame burst from the edge of the gauntlet and his feet left the ground and he landed again and he was running

- and he shrugged his shoulders like he could flap angel's wings and clockwork expanded from his shoulders and a blaze of flame lifted him off the deck and Sarah was waving and he landed again and he was running

_and running_

And the edge of the deck was close. close enough that he could see the huge expanse of cloud below him.

-and he flung his arms wide open and he leapt off the airship and he dived.

"Fare well, Noah," Sarah said to the thin air, and turned to go belowdecks. She could hear her mother's drunken shrieking from three floors up, and miles away.

* * *

_fall, fall, fall._

Puck spiralled down, punching through the clouds as the gears whirred on his command to give him goggles, but the air whipped through his body until he could see the vaguest dots of the forests below and he clenched his fists and shrugged his shoulders and he was _FLYING_ -

and the world was open before him, like a blanket over grass.

* * *

"No," Kurt said. "I won't. I won't do it."

"You don't have a choice, Porcelain," captain sylvester said. "Now get on your dainty little ballerina feet. You said you had talent, in Kinley. I want to see it."

"I didn't mean for you to take me away from my family!"

"Tough luck, m'boy. I'm Captain Sue Sylvester, and I am the most feared pirate in all of the world, God help the manjack or wench who disagrees -"

"Yes, Captain," chorused her pirate gang.

"Actually, no, there is no God. At least not after I'm done with them."

Kurt whimpered.

"Now dance, Porcelain!"

"Cap'n!"

Through the porthole, one of her minions flared her gauntlets and moved up into Captain Sylvester's line of vision.

"What is it this time?" Captain Sylvester said. "Can't you see I'm busy doing fun things?"

"The Schuester airship is within firing distance! Their engines have stopped working!"

Captain Sylvester slowly swivelled her head to the minion outside.

"Fine work, Santana," Captain Sylvester said. "You may have top priority for the hot showers facilities now...after me, of course."

"Thank you, Cap'n!" Santana called back.

"Man the guns!" Captain Sylvester roared. "Let's make those Schuesters regret they ever crossed Captain Sue Sylvester!"

She favored Kurt with a glare. "You've gotten a temporary reprieve, boyo. But I'll be back very soon."

Kurt curled up into a corner of the room, and rocked slowly, his eyes dry. He would not let her see him cry.

Not one tear. Not even after the Schuesters, who had taken him in, were gone.

* * *

"Hey, Finn, do you know what happened to that kurt boy?"

Finn sighed, and scrubbed harder at one of the tables, where the beer stain was particularly deep.

"He got taken away by Sylvester," he said, quietly, putting his entire body into the movement.

"Oh, no," the barmaid said. "I...liked him, you know?"

"I know, Mercedes," Finn said. "I liked him, too."

"You seemed to act like he was your little brother, or something."

"I always wanted a little brother," the big man said. "And he was nice."

"Yeah," Mercedes said. "He was...nice."

They were silent for a while, with only the clink of Mercedes rearranging the glassware on her shelves and the sound of Finn's scrubbing interrupting their silence. Sounds from outside filtered in; the hustle and bustle of a floating city, marketeering and rockets flaring and talking.

Finn scrubbed harder at the stain. It didn't seem to come out. Harder. Harder. Harder.

"FIGGING HEIL!" Finn slapped the cloth down and took a step back, breathing hard. "I wish we didn't all live in fear that Sylvester would get us! We're a figgin' floating City! And we're all scared of her!"

"Shh, shh," Mercedes said. "Calm down, big man. You know what they say - she has ears everywhere. I like you well enough that I don't want to see you carted off into one of her torture rooms, okay? Calm down, Finn."

"...Fine," Finn said. "You can open up again. I'm okay."

"That's good to hear. You take care of yourself, y'hear?"

"Thanks, Mercedes."

"You're the best informal bouncer I've got. You make me money, big man. That's why I care so much about ya."

"Ha, thanks anyway, 'Cedes."

"You're welcome, buddy. Go home, alright? I can manage without you for just this one night. You need to separate yourself from that boy."

"I got it, I got it," Finn said, heading for the door, his head down.

He snapped his arms out to the side and the wires teased out, gears unfolding.

Finn flung himself off the precipice two feet away from Mercedes' front door, and clenched his fists and shrugged his shoulders, and his gauntlets and wings' rockets ignited.

He dodged another flyer, and headed across town to where he lived alone.


	2. Chapter 1

**Had We All The World Below**

**

* * *

**

_Lean back, watch the sky._

Back to the clouds, trailing streams of flame from the gauntlets. Puck rolled over in mid-air, the passing of time marked only by the passage of the great ball of fire roiling over him. He cast a shadow on the clouds below, distorted by the peaks of the clouds themselves.

His wings' rockets rotated on gyroscopes, feeding themselves off the fuel in his backpack. He floated, legs hanging down; there would be an airship soon, where he could refuel and get food and supplies. for now, he was free.

Free from his mother's nagging, free from having to hide his sister from his mother while getting out of the way himself. Guilty as that made him feel, he needed this, this freedom. He hadn't been free since his dad took off and never came back.

Sarah would be fine, he told himself. They'd built a set for her, over the years; he trusted that suit that they had built more than this rickety old thing he'd inherited from his granddad.

A flock of birds passed by, and idly, puck wanted to know what it'd taste like.

He licked his lips and drifted.

Then a reticule formed over his vision.

Mouth agape, Puck saw the reticule focus on one of the birds, the one that looked the weakest. His right gauntlet abruptly reformed, the gears whirring back into an amorphous shape before reforming into a long barrel. A readout on his forearm showed the a fuel count, but not ammunition.

...What?

Puck clenched his fist, like he was applying a boost.

The end of his gauntlet erupted in a blinding flash of light. Puck blinked away the darkened spots in his vision, and he noted that the fuel count had decreased by a little bit. Not that little, unfortunately.

Puck's lips curled up into a little smirk. So maybe this thing wasn't so rickety and useless after all...

He noted the sparrow's fall. Ah well, no sense in wasting food...

He flipped over and used his left gauntlet to boost him in the direction of the falling bird, not caring as the rest of the flock scattered at his approach.

He roasted the bird with the flame from his gauntlet and ate the thing for dinner.

It tasted like freedom.

* * *

"You ready, Artie?" Mike said, strapping in. The gate in front of him had never looked so menacing, even though they'd practiced as a team hundreds and hundreds of times.

"Ask Tina instead," Artie said, wires snapping out from his copper legs to sync with his capsule. The engine released a jet of steam and started whistling, quietly.

"Tina?" Mike said.

"I'm ready," she said, narrowing her eyes at her gate.

"Sam?" Mike said, to the newest member of their four-man team. "Are you good?"

"Green-lit!" Sam called back. "All ready to go."

"Alright," Mike said. "We're up against a decent team in the league, but we gotta take them down to get to regionals. Or at least, lose prettily."

"'Lose prettily'?" Artie said. "Hell no! We're going to win!"

The lights in the tunnel went from red to blue, and water began to flood in at the sides. In each tunnel their capsules began to float, and by the time the water reached the top, submerge.

Mike took a deep breath.

"Let's do this," he said quietly. Rocking his foot over the acceleration pedal, his hearing filled with the sound of his propellers, starting up.

* * *

_Thump-thump-thump-thump-thumpthumpthumpthumpTHUMP._

"Aaaand they're off! The lights are green, and the teams have emerged into the overdrome! Looks like Team A.U.I. is still getting their bearings, but that's to be expected; they're a new team. How will they do against the Homedog Giants? Stay tuned to watch out!"

* * *

"I'll lay bets on A.U.I. for...two hundred credits."

"Two hundred creds?" the bookie peered at the determined young lady. "Are you sure? They're serious underdogs, here, and we're talking a million-to-one chance that they win."

"Do I win that much when they make it, then?"

"Ahem, no," the bookie said. "Twenty-to-three. Would you like to hedge your bets, at least? Two hundred creds is a lot to bet for a first-timer...Miss...?"

"Berry," the lady said. "Rachel Berry. I've been to observe their practice times, you see, and I fully believe that A.U.I. has the sheer talent to pull it off."

"Well," the bookie said, having access to more of the information behind the sport than the public would, "A.U.I. does seem to be a little bit more revolutionary than other first-timer teams. I still think you're making a mistake, though."

"Nonetheless," Rachel said. "Two hundred credits."

"It's your loss," the bookie said, shrugging. "Ah...may I suggest that you head to Mercedes'? If you're here it means you don't have a ticket, and Mercedes' is a good place to watch it from without the sensors knocking you out of the sky."

For the first time since walking in, Rachel Berry looked unsure. "Are...you certain?"

"Very," the bookie smiled. He polished his glasses, and looked at her. "No shoo. I have customers."

Rachel quirked a smile at him and jogged out the door. At the first available free space, she ignited her gauntlets and flew toward the automated signboards, floating in mid-air, marked by puffs of white steam in the incandescently red sky.

* * *

"Welcome to Mercedes'!" An irrepressibly cheerful screenie exclaimed. "Step through a door and take a seat, and Mercedes'll serve you whatever you're looking for! If you're looking to watch the games in the overdrome, ask for the top deck."

Rachel mustered up all of her courage and stepped through the door. It was so odd, not being on the airship with her fathers, surrounded by so many other people who didn't understand her unique upbringing.

A woman hustled up to her, tapping her on her shoulder.

Shocked, she whirled and stared with her mouth agape for a second.

"Um," she said, hating herself for being so nervous, "Are you Mercedes?"

"Bet yo' ass I am," Mercedes said, smiling at her. Mercedes' accent was so weird!

"Um..." Rachel said. "...Top...deck?"

"Oh, you're an overdrome fan, are ya? Up you get, then," Mercedes said, pointing toward a dinky little staircase. "You have to climb; the top deck's covered in zooming glass and gears over the top. You fly outside, people inside get a magnificent close-up view of your butt. Oh, there's no one up there to-day; the teams aren't well-known or well-liked enough for it to be majorly crowded. Homedogs aren't too welcome in this part of town, you know?"

"Oh...oh," Rachel said. "S'okay, I bet on A.U.I."

"Sister," Mercedes said, "I know next to nothing on the newbie team. But they look pretty promising," she said, casting an eye up on screen where the capsules were beginning their testing of the other team, red lasers flashing briefly through the murky waters.

"So once I close up shop, I'll be right up there with you."

"Oh..." Rachel said. "Okay." She smiled weakly at Mercedes, feeling completely out of her element.

She'd just have to impress them all with her knowledge of Droming!

"Hey, girl," Mercedes said when Rachel'd taken two steps toward the staircase. "My boy Finn's up there. He's a bouncer for the place. So don't get him too pissed off, eh?"

Rachel nodded nervously, and took careful steps up the staircase, her gauntlets unfolding just in case she needed not to fall through the rotted wood.

* * *

The sound of a whistle cut through the early morning air, and Santana made sure to take one last potshot at Quinn just as the whistle stopped blowing. Expectedly, Quinn twisted her body back in a perfect arc and dodged the blast. Santana cursed under her breath. All the Cheerios turned to face their Captain on deck, maneuvering so that they landed on the deck in pairs. As her feet extended to touch the deck, Quinn 'accidentally' interfered with Santana's left gauntlet control, so that Santana was slightly off-balance, causing her to stumble.

Santana thought quickly and fell to one knee in front of Captain Sylvester, bowing her head, one fist over her heart. The gauntlet flowed away from her hand, the gears coiling up along the wire and the wire slipping into the straps around Santana's slender waist. It mustn't have looked too bad, Santana thought, watching Captain Sylvester's face.

"On your feet, Santana!" Captain Sylvester called. She paused. "Though I do enjoy your grovelling. Excuse me," she coughed, "-Gesture of respect."

"Thank you, Captain Sylvester," Santana said, and darted Quinn a look of triumph when Captain Sylvester wasn't looking.

Captain Sylvester cleared her throat. Santana jumped, and got out of the way.

The next pair of Cheerios landed.

When they were all on deck again, Captain Sue Sylvester surveyed her minions and smirked. "A good drill today, women," she said. "Becky!"

"Yes, Captain!" the girl snapped to attention.

"I think I should _MAKE YOU THROW YOURSELF OFF THE DECK! WITHOUT WINGS! YOU WERE SLOPPIER THAN WHEN WE MADE SCHUESTER CRAWL INTO THE PIG TROUGH!_ Not that I'm saying you're _like_ a pig, Becky, because frankly, you _are_ one."

Becky wilted.

"The rest of you, inside on the double!"

"Yes, Cap'n!"

"Oh, and Quinn?"

"Yes, Captain?"

"Bring out the boy. And take this pathetic girl's straps off her. She doesn't deserve to fly. In Captain Sue Sylvester's Cheerios, you've got to earn the right to fly. Understood?"

"Yes, Captain!" Quinn said.

Becky was fighting tears too hard to reply.

Captain Sylvester slapped her in the face.

"As I thought," she said, slowly. "You're not fit to be one of my Cheerios. Get back into the engines with the other slaves. Quinn, you are fully authorised to make her if she doesn't obey on the double."

Quinn crooked a finger at Becky, and smiled. It was not a nice smile. Captain Sylvester approved of that smile.

* * *

Captain Sylvester looked out at the open sky. A flock of birds passed by overhead.

The straps on her right arm sprouted strips of metal that formed into a massive steel cannon. Between one heartbeat and the next, the flock of birds was nothing more than little black lumps, smoking as they fell. Captain Sylvester took a deep whiff.

Ah...it smelled like Complete Domination. Captain Sylvester looked out at the world, spread her arms, and laughed. The whole world smelled like Complete Domination!...to come.

And she couldn't wait.

* * *

An airship loomed large in Puck's vision as he flew. So did the smaller ship next to it, sleek and smooth and buzzing with capsules and minor figures of 'shotters, their gauntlets giving off bursts of white-hot flame visible even from this far off.

Pirates.

Puck narrowed his eyes and smirked.

His right gauntlet reshaped itself into the gun, and the reticule started buzzing in his vision again.

Freedom was fun, but so was hunting pirates.


	3. Chapter 2

**Had We All The World Below

* * *

**

A shot screamed past.

Puck tucked his knees into his body, turned and rolled, the gyros in his wings adjusting so that he was always countering gravity. As the reticule on his vision began to start targeting free-flying pirates, the reticule jiggling every so often as his will and the automatic targeting clashed, he noted that the guns on the ship they had aimed for were swiveling and firing, without much luck.

If this wingshot of his had a gun, it might have other weaponry, as well.

He focused.

The gears rearranged themselves all along the wire, and began humming and rotating themselves around his gauntlet.

Fuck yeah.

A chainsaw.

* * *

The response was slow, but all that Puck had learned about wingshots was that they'd adjust themselves to your unconscious body and mental signals fast enough. 'Course, people also said that wingshots would eventually jack themselves into your body, but he hardly believed that. Those people were nuts and believed that the most feared pirate in the world had her pirates called the 'Cheerios'. Honestly, if he were the most feared pirate in the world, he'd have his gang called 'The Fucking Fighting Gang of Awesome'...not 'Cheerios.' Sheesh, those guys _were_ crazy**.**

Using his free gauntlet, he launched himself in the direction of the fight, the beginnings of plasma weaponry and lasers blazing away from both sides of the boarding, but on the underside. The pirate ship had managed to dock with the other, flinging grappling hooks and scrounged harpoons at one point to lock the two ships together. Pirates with wingshots emerged from the upper decks of their ship, their ruined windows shattering further as black-clad pirates, less ragged than the scum already flying mid-air, flamed their gauntlets and aimed for the bigger, slower ship, or more specifically, the supply lockers on the main deck.

Puck could admire them. They seemed utterly professional at robbing the bigger airship silly, each team moving valuable supplies out from the stores. The owner of the airship**, **a stocky man stood with his hands high in the air and his gaze contemptuous of the pirates, threatening him with rifles from their gauntlets.

The leader, a man with a flamboyant outfit, ridiculous gold teeth, and unbelievably colorful hat**, **reclined on a couch in the cockpit, clearly making threats as his gang surrounded him, holding swords formed from their efficient, sleek, non-fuel-needing wingshots.

Puck flicked a glance at his fuel supply, not noticing that his vision had somehow sharpened enough for him to see the details of the leader's teeth, and had painted a reticule over the entire figure.

Mm...not low by any means, but his reserves were already empty. Perhaps if he involved himself in this fight, he could...maybe...get a restock?

He brought his arm up, the gears already reshaping itself to his will.

This far away from the battle, no pirate noticed a motionless figure hanging in the air with a gun out pointing at them**. **

Clouds drifted by, wispy clouds that should have blocked his view, but didn't. They roiled over him as the reticule shifted from the white it had been to painting his entire view green, with the leader outlined in red. The reticule jiggled here and there, but as the leader mostly sat still, it locked on fairly quickly.

His right arm began to hum and Puck did not notice as the gears reshaped themselves, the teeth locking together in different configurations; his gun barrel lengthened as a result.

If Puck had noticed he'd probably have made a crude joke. As it was, he lined his shot up, his entire body thrumming now with adrenaline and excitement, and clenched his fist.

The shot blew him backward in the air, the gyroscopes in his wings correcting his backward flight almost instantly. The shot flew, a great mass of silver light, and his fuel supply took a visible decrease.

Puck smirked, watching the mass as it flew.

* * *

"Now, this is our final offer," the truly ugly pirate with no fashion sense and the golden teeth said, "I want you, Ken, to give me the password into your security safe, and then we'll let you and your lovely red-haired wife live, unmolested." He smiled again, the gold teeth flashing.

Ken crossed his arms. "Not a chance," he said. He had been in the tournaments when wingshots were regulated and not a way of life. He had seen things far worse than these young idiots trying to pirate off him.

"Very well," the man said. "Is there nothing I can offer you in return, perhaps?"

"Get the hell off my ship, and I won't call the fleet on you."

"Tsk tsk tsk," the pirate said. "Such pathetic threats."

An unfamiliar heat flooded the room.

"Odd," the pirate said. "Jesse, find out what's causing that heat, would you? Run along to the engine room. I would rather that none of my idiotic hangers-on decided that breaking a steam pipe would be a good idea."

The chosen pirate ran out of the room.

"Uh, Cap'n?" one of his guards said. "Why is the room getting brighter?"

"Hmm?" the pirate captain said. "It's getting brighter?"

Something glimmered at the corner of Ken's eyes. His jaw fell open, a little bit. He pressed himself into the wall.

The pirate leader exploded into a patch of gore.

Half a moment later, the gore had evaporated, and red-hot liquid gold dripped to the floor from mid-air and began steaming.

Ken's beautiful, beautiful couch was a glowing bed of coals, and the wall behind it cherry-red with a rather large hole in the center.

Ken's eyes narrowed. The last of those gun-forms had been outlawed in tournaments years before, and the suits with them destroyed. Who-

"_CAPTAIN!_" the pirates shrieked.

The room devolved into a chaotic mess.

Ken smirked, slowly, softly. These pirates were professional...up to a point. He clenched his fists.

"_WINGS OF ADRENALIN_!" a woman shouted. "_TO ME!_"

All at once the chaos became order, but Ken's guards took an eye off him for a second too long.

"Too little, too late," Ken said softly, and the woman snapped her head around to him, open-mouthed**.**

Ken Tanaka, a participant in the last grand tournaments, snapped an arm toward her, and gears flowed down the wire that emerged from his veins. The gun extended from his hand, and a reticule appeared in his vision.

The wings on his shoulders snapped out and expanded, curving around him in a copper, globe-like defense.

The tableau froze.

"Now," Ken Tanaka said pleasantly, "you can clear off my ship, and never come back. Call your pirates off, and your leader doesn't die. You have five seconds. Five..."

The woman's gaze flicked downward. "Very well," she said.

"Four..."

"Adrenalin! Off the ship!"

"Ma'am!"

Ken rubbed his eyes as he stared at the wreckage of his beautiful cockpit, the edges of the hole still glowing molten red.

* * *

"Oh ho," one of the pirates chortled as he dragged the bound woman out from her room. "Seems like we've got our hands on a little beauty, eh? Hey pretty lady, let's have some fun, eh?"

The redheaded woman struggled fiercely, but the bonds were far too tight.

From high up and far away, that pirate's voice made Puck look up in surprise from where he'd been experimenting with the wingshot. Puck's gaze settled on her in the living-quarters deck, then settled on the four men standing around her, all clad in black. His gauntlets ramped up his acceleration; the gun had shifted away long ago. As he came close to the nearest broken window, Puck stilled his gauntlets to the bare minimum; indeed, folded them back (the gears unlocked and ran up the wire to pool at his shoulder as armguards) and climbed through the window.

Puck touched down behind the pirates, his shoes making no sound on the deck.

The woman's eyes widened.

Puck made his left gauntlet flow into the chainsaw, which promptly started thrumming.

"Hi, guys," Puck said pleasantly.

They whirled.

"Now who in the bleedin' seventy-five heavens an' hells are you?" demanded the lanky one**,** pulling a shiv from his clothes.

Tempted as he was to make a one-liner, the thought that the four of them could easily take him if he started monologuing made him refrain.

"Let the lady go," Puck said quietly. "Or else."

"Or else?" the midget said. "I don't see where you've got the grounds to threaten us."

Sweeping his robes aside, he revealed a gleaming handgun.

"Now," the midget said. "I can shoot you before you even hit me with that chainsaw."

Puck looked down at the ground.

"Now, take off that wingshot," the midget said. "And lie on the ground with your hands on your head."

Puck stared at him for a moment. Then he smirked.

"What if I said no?"

"Then you'd die," the midget said.

"Hm?" Puck said.

He threw his hands out in front of him, and his wings curved around him like a belt, which separated into three rust-red stripes.

His right gauntlet shifted into a gun, which pointed at the midget.

"Put the gun down," Puck said pleasantly, "or I'LL be forced to shoot. This goes for the rest of you, by the way."

The lanky one suddenly lunged at him, out of the range his gun could move in time.

The shiv stabbed between the stripes.

"Ungh!" the lanky man said, his back colliding with the far wall, shaking uncontrollably.

The space where he'd tried to stab crackled with purple sparks, and Puck's smirk was visible through another gap.

"Now," he said, "lie down."

As the other two lay down and put their hands over their head, the midget lowered his gun.

"This isn't over," he hissed.

"_ALL ADRENALIN! TO THE SHIP!_"

Puck raised an eyebrow.

The midget swore under his breath.

"Go," Puck said, gesturing toward the door.

The four-man squad ran out of the door, the three functioning ones carrying the lanky one.

* * *

Puck approached the bound woman, the wings combining the three layers and unfolding to form his flying wings again.

He knelt next to the woman and ripped off her gag.

"Thank you," the woman said. "Thank you thank you thank you. Oh, they were so - so unclean!"

Puck pressed the edge of the chainsaw gently on her ropes. The ropes snapped, and she was free.

Free to-

Apparently start cleaning everything in sight with wipes she'd pulled from a pocket.

What the-

"Lady," Puck said uncomfortably. "Would it be possible for me to get some fuel from you? And maybe food?"

* * *

"What are you doing? Ken! Ken! He saved us! Why are you calling Fleet?"

"Your repayment to him was his fuel and his food. My repayment is that I haven't put up a bounty hunter notice yet. Fleet needs to know that an unknown has one of the old, banned, tournament wingshots. Without the appropriate controls, Emma, they're weapons of mass destruction."

"But...he's just a teenage boy, Ken."

"And teenage boys with that weaponry are worse than anyone else. I don't think you understand the scale of that, Emma... Come into the cockpit."

"...Oh, my."

* * *

_"Up! Up on your feet, Porcelain!"_

"Why do you call me that?" Kurt said, bowing his head but pulling himself up regardless.

"Would you like me to call you Gay Ballerina instead?"

"...No."

"Porcelain! Dance!"

"...No! ...Nnngh!"

"When I say dance, you dance," Sylvester said, gripping his hair tightly and pulling him up until he was on tiptoes. She snapped the fingers of her free hand.

Quinn stepped up with a smile, and the gears flowed down across her wires, forming into a gun. She pressed the barrel to Kurt's face, the red-and-white metal cold against his cheeks.

"Do what Captain Sylvester says," Quinn said with a smile. "Or -"

The gun shifted its aim, lower. "Or you'll find out how we _really_ induct people into our Abstinence Club."

Kurt licked his lips, his eyes squeezed shut from the pain. "...Okay."

Captain Sylvester dropped him.

He swept a leg out and flowed from one position to the other. Captain Sylvester watched with delight, and one by one, the Cheerios showed up to watch it.

"Mm-hm," Captain Sylvester said. "I hope you're all taking notes. Freeze, Porcelain!"

Kurt froze.

"This posture here - do you see how it appears to open up the right hand side for people to shoot? Continue, Porcelain!"

Kurt jerked back into motion.

"One quick hand-elbow movement, and suddenly, your attacker gets a very... nasty... surprise. Stop," she said to Kurt.

Kurt stopped.

"Now, get outside and practice it. Chop-chop!"

The Cheerios filed out of the room.

"Very good, Porcelain," Captain Sylvester said. "You've helped in my plans for world domination, and I'm sure everyone in Kinley will thank you, since that's where I'm heading first."

* * *

_thump-thump-thump-thump-thumpthumpthumpthump_

Tina jerked her gearstick back, aiming her capsule toward the top edge of the overdrome. In the murky waters, she relied entirely on the 3D radar at the corner of her view. Her team had spread out, but within laser distance, in order to keep the Homedogs from taking them down all at once. She'd been the one to volunteer the information from her previous experience, and watching Mike and Artie analyze the situation and come up with plans to counter it was a delight, really. She didn't have much of an opinion on Sam Evans; he was a new arrival to the team, and quite quiet.

"Tina," Mike said calmly over their team channel. "Fire a stuttershot at oh forty-two degrees."

Tina took a hand off her gearstick and pushed it to the right, pumping the acceleration pedal every now and again to let the capsule drift along that bearing. Bringing her wings up, she flicked the glass case of the missiles open and let one fly off into the gloom.

The stuttershot, a missile with three propellant packs, vanished.

"Lasers!" Artie said through gritted teeth, and in the viewpoint, she saw his capsule begin evasive maneuvers, the lasers showing up as thin red lines on the mostly-green readout.

"Direction?" Mike asked.

"Sixty-eight northwest and twenty-five down," Artie said, and Mike zipped his capsule in that direction.

Tina watched the readout; Mike danced his capsule between the red lines, and the triangle of a Homedog showed up in her radar.

"On my way," Tina said, and began the journey down. "Sam?"

"Coming," he said, and began drifting upward.

Mike's capsule flashed blue for a moment. Tina jammed her thumbs hard on her gearstick, and the nitro packs under the propellers blew her at double speed toward the Homedog.

Artie opened fire. He rolled, his legs moving his capsule as an extension of his whole body.

The Homedog vanished off the screen.

"What?" Tina said. "Who killed him?"

"Me," Sam said. "One laser to the aft port."

"T-that-" Tina said, "G-good shot."

As her capsule bubbled past the dead capsule in the water, its pilot already swimming upward toward the exit point, Tina's heart fell.

"Guys?" she said. "That was the Terrier. That means that Bulldog probably has us in his sights right about-"

* * *

"AND THE BULLDOG FIRES HIS ENTIRE MASS OF MISSILES AT A.U.I! OOH, THAT'S A DOOZY, CAUSE, FOLKS, THE BULLDOG HAS ABOUT A HUNDRED OF THEM."

* * *

"_Artie! To your left!"_

Artie rolled his ship again, his muscles straining as gravity pulled against him. The missile streaked past by a large margin, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

And looked up. Directly at the nose of a missile, and he could evade no longer.

"_NO! ARTIE!"_

The missile detonated._  
_

.net/u/1152666/Cheryl_Dyson


	4. Chapter 3

**Had We All The World Below**

**

* * *

**

"Quinn, get your skinny little ass down to the engine room and get me full power. I want to crush those midgets who denied us the prize of their power plants and weaponry, and take it from them by force. Overwhelming force. Superior force."

Quinn smirked and hightailed it down the stairs.

"Lift those legs high and get your thighs better toned, Cheerio!" Captain Sylvester called after her.

"Now." She stood and began to circle Kurt. "Do you know what this, my beautiful, beautiful baby Jean can do?" She patted the ornately carved wooden wall of the ship. "It is the _fastest_, most _armored_, most _long-ranged_, most _powerful_ ship that has _ever existed_ on the _surface_ of this _miserable_ planet. And all of its guns are currently pointing at _your_ birthplace, Lady Face."

Kurt's eyes grew wide.

"That's right. And now that my Cheerios have your 'twinkly' dance moves, we will be an _unstoppable_ force. We'll move onto Lima from Kinley, and then when I subjugate the local Fleet to my indomitable will, I'll move on to the rest of the world, and I will be the Captain Of The World. Yes, Twinkly-Toes, you've helped me to dominate the entire world."

His breaths grew shallower.

"Oh, and once I get my ship up to full speed, we'll crush Kinley at oh, four o'clock or so. I'll make sure that my Cheerios have you set up in a room with a view, so you can enjoy the sight of those lovely high towers with their apartments of weak, pathetic people, getting vaporised by These Very Hands."

She left, the door closing behind her.

Kurt sank back until his gaze matched the beams on the ceiling, listening to the thumps above where the Cheerios were clearly strapping themselves into battle harness. His breaths came shallowly, and he clutched at his heart.

No. Kinley. Kinley, where he had grown up, where his teacher had left him, where he had friends and big Finn, who was like the brother he'd never had. And Mercedes. His best friend. Where the Schuesters had found him, before Sue Sylvester blew them out of the sky.

A rumbling started, low under his feet. Just as suddenly, it stopped.

* * *

"So, Quinn," Santana said, falling into step behind her as Quinn descended into the bowels of their airship, "How are we doing today?"

"I'm doing just fine," Quinn said, giving the other girl a slight smile that revealed no genuine emotion. "How are you feeling, after that nasty fall in front of Sue - I mean, Captain Sylvester?"

Santana's face revealed nothing, but a flash in her eyes let her know that the blow had struck.

"Just fine," she forced out. "And where are you off to?"

Quinn shook her head. "I'm on business for the Captain. I don't need you with me."

"You're headed for the slave compound, aren't you?"

"I would think that it would be obvious, given where I'm walking."

"You'll need backup."

"The Cheerios on shift at the door will help me. If I needed it. Don't you have something else to do? Balance practice, maybe?"

Santana gritted her teeth.

"-Brittany, maybe?"

Exploiting Santana's quirk of fury, Quinn patted Santana on the head and stalked off, adding sway to her hips.

Santana stayed perfectly still in the middle of the corridor, her fists clenched and her teeth gritted. Her wingshot expanded in regard to her fury, and she aimed unwaveringly at the back of Quinn's head with the gun that replaced her gauntlet.

Working her jaw, she fought to get back under control. The gauntlets flowed away, up the wires wrapping around her wrists, and vanished into the butterfly-variant harness at her back.

"I'll get you one day, Quinn," Santana vowed, quietly. "One way or another, you will know pain."

* * *

The ship rocked. Kurt rocked with it, his body sliding down the long beams of wood until he collided with the opposite wall. One of the larger-than-life portraits of Captain Sylvester quivered in its frame, but stayed on the wall. Kurt clapped a hand to his chest in relief. What Captain Sylvester would do to him if she saw that a picture of herself had broken wasn't even worth thinking about, for sheer horror.

He was suddenly aware of a growing hum under his legs, under his body, that scaled from a teeth-chattering frequency into an audible shriek.

His arms were yanked upward. Metal was cold around his wrists.

"Ow!" he said, and looked up. Two Cheerios stared at him, equally blank-faced. Their harnesses were active, small bumps of wings visible behind their slim builds. Their gloves, palms of indigo-black steel, closed around his wrists and pulled him to his feet.

He made no protest. They would not have listened, regardless.

They threw him into a tiny, dusty room, with a window that took up most of a wall and a bit of the floor. The only bit of furnishing he could see was a dirty white timepiece, that at least seemed to be working normally. The door slammed shut behind him, and Kurt heard the distinctive hiss-click of a pressure lock.

The world outside flashed by at an alarming rate.

He was more aware than ever of the rumbling under his feet, how the ship seemed to creak and sway as it staggered into full speed.

Clouds appeared in his vision, the unique shapes of it, familiar to him from long afternoons of sitting on the edge of Kinley, watching the long, long drop below him, and the clouds, aimlessly passing by.

The hills and the peaks of clouds emerged and vanished just as he passed by.

Kurt blinked and rubbed his eyes. Was that - was that the first of the security buoys that Kinley had out?

A flash of light erupted from somewhere above, reflecting red-pink off the clouds surrounding the ship, and the security buoy vanished in a plume of fire and smoke. Then it was gone, and Kurt sank to his knees and pressed his face and hands into the dirty windowpane, unwilling to look away.

* * *

_Twenty minutes to four._

* * *

"Hey baby, I think I wanna marry you..."

As Rachel climbed the rickety staircase, that voice floated down to her from the rooftop. Rachel sucked in a minor gasp. To think, that she had found such amazing vocal talent from a Citizen! When she had been on the family airship with her two papas, they'd taught her everything they knew about droming, and about singing. After having travelled here and there, she had come to the conclusion that a talented voice was practically impossible to find.

The voice took an audible breath. "It's a beautiful night, we're looking for something dumb to do, hey baby, I think I wanna marry you-"

Rachel increased the pace of her steps until she was fairly running up the rickety steps. Oddly enough, they didn't creak.

Probably no one used it. Come to think of it, why wasn't she flying up?

...Oh, wait. The stairs must be flammable.

She winced.

"It's a beautiful night, we're looking for something dumb to do-" She could hear the smile in his voice, and the slight sorrow. He must be single! ...Oh, please, let him be single.

"-Hey baby, I think I wanna marry you."

"It's a beautiful night, we're looking for something dumb to do-" and the voice was getting softer.

The light was getting brighter, turning the stairs into something of a caricature of the films in the theatres, all black-and-white, the individual steps casting long black shadows on her torso and face. Rachel ran, using the gauntlets to boost her steps, not caring that she left scorchmarks on the ruined walls as long as the stairs didn't catch fire.

Panting a little, Rachel took the final step, and stilled.

"-Hey baby," the tall, muscular figure standing at the edge of the rooftop deck sang, staring out at the overdrome.

And holy shit, the overdrome. Rachel caught her breath. The overdrome loomed so large in the foreground - that 'magnifying glass', it must be...and the action roiling within it was furious, and fast. Laser lights danced within the aquamarine of the large overdrome sphere, and lines of bubbles clouded visibility as missiles blazed from opening ports.

The sky was so red and gold, but the rooftop deck was flooded with artificial light, pure white.

"-I think I wanna marry you," the figure sang. His voice was quieter, and then silent.

Rachel took a breath and smiled and started to walk closer to the figure. Really, the man was lucky; she knew that song. Her dads had sung it to each other on their anniversary. Every year. And she'd learned it, of course.

"Is it the look in your eyes? Or is it this dancing juice?"

And the figure whirled, and Rachel's breath hitched. He was...stunning. His eyes were wide, and he pressed his back against the deck's screen.

"Who cares, baby, I think I wanna marry you."

Finn's breath hitched. This beautiful woman, in a dress that was strikingly red, stood in the doorway down to Mercedes' bar. His knees were jelly. This lady...singing that to him.

"Well, I know this little chapel on the boulevard we can go-" Rachel sang, advancing on him and stopping with a hand on her hip, smirking at him.

He looked a bit like a paralyzed rabbit, all shocked and surprised. Rachel laid a hand on his chest, a bit surprised by her own daring, and trailed it along his chest as she twirled.

"No one will know-" Rachel whispered.

Finn licked his lips and swallowed and held onto this stranger by the waist and pulled her flush to him, singing to the rooftop in general.

"Oh, come on - girl -"

"Who cares if we're trash, we got a pocket full of cash, we can go-share some," Finn held this beautiful woman in his arms, who wasn't struggling to get out, and joined his voice to hers. They soared together, and Finn breathed in her scent. Gods above; she smelt like...like...he couldn't describe it. Soap and...and...some kind of fruit he hadn't had before.

"Scenes in the overdrome," Rachel sang, shutting her eyes tight at adding something different. Instead the man behind her chuckled and pulled her closer to him. Rachel relaxed. She felt so safe for the first time in the City, encircled by his arms and his warmth.

"Ah, and it's on - girl," Finn sang to the girl in his arms, looking out at the doorway. Mercedes stood there with her mouth agape and her hands together, but knowing better than to interrupt. Mercedes facilitated _moments_, not spoiled them.

"You'll say no, no, no, no no," the man holding her sang mischievously, and Rachel laughed.

"Just say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah," she sung back, knocking her head back against his chest and peering up at where his face would be with her eyes still closed. She didn't want to forget this forever.

"And we'll go, go, go, go go-" Finn sang, amazed that this lady matched him in time perfectly. They fit together; her voice filled in the rough spots where his tone couldn't cover, and he made her more solid, and the curve of her fit against him... "-If you're ready, like I'm ready."

"If we wake up, and we wanna break up, that's cool," Finn sang, knowing he was skipping about half the song, but he wanted to test her, he wanted to know if she knew it. And she did, he guessed; she joined in on 'that's cool' - "No, I won't blame you, 'cause we're stronger."

He sang with such meaning, Rachel absently thought, her mind mostly fully sank into the song. He sang as though he were saying each word...to me. To me! Her heart beat faster and she turned to wrap her arms around him, pressing their chests together so their hearts could beat in time. And so he could feel what he did to her. She pressed her head into his shoulder and breathed him in.

...That sounded a bit off.

But it was true, because he smelled like the fruits her father would hang off the ceiling of their ship, 'to perfume the air' - a little musky, a little bit sweet, but distinctive beyond belief. She hadn't thought anyone could smell like this outside of her fathers' airship.

"'Cause it's a beautiful night," they sang to each other. Rachel's breath came faster, shallower. "We're looking for something dumb to do...hey baby, I think I wanna marry you."

"Is it the look in your eyes? Or is it this dancing juice?" and Rachel opened her eyes and looked directly at this stranger man, and his eyes were dark, so dark and looking at her with unfamiliar emotion, and she was suddenly a little bit off-balance, a little unsure of herself. Why..._Citizens_!

"Who cares, baby," Finn sang gently to the lady in red in his arms, her eyes soft and her smile inviting, and cupped her chin in his hand so that he could look directly at her. "I think I wanna marry you."

He lowered his head and kissed her, their last notes spiraling away into the air around them.

* * *

_Fourteen minutes to go-thirteen minutes to go._

* * *

Tick-tock tick-tock, the racing clock.

Kurt closed his eyes and made himself sink into memory. The ship dipped, and began to sink down, down below the docking level for Kinley, almost down below the City itself.

* * *

"Calm yourself," his teacher said. Kurt raised his eyes, jumping up and down as high as his twelve-year-old legs could take him.

"Teacher! Teacher! Teach me the next steps!"

"Calm yourself," the blonde woman said. "You'll only achieve true. Striking. Power. When you're totally focused on your objective. Pick -"

"I don't want any philosophy!" Kurt growled, his nose wrinkling. "I want to move! I want to dance! I want to make! High! Kicks!"

As he attempted to kick, his foot slipped on the polished terracotta and sent him toppling backward.

"Ow," he said.

"Patience," his teacher said, but he could see that she was giggling.

Sourly, he climbed back to his feet. "This isn't fair!" he said, crossing his arms. "I demand that you teach me the moves, right now!"

"Oh?" his teacher said, her eyebrow rising. "Have you mastered your previous stances?"

"Yeah," Kurt said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Duh."

"Alright," his teacher said, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Show me."

The hand on his shoulder wasn't comfort, it was a counter-demand. Kurt followed his teacher outside, into the garden, where a series of hovering platforms took off, off the ground at different heights.

"Use everything," his teacher said, then sat back.

Kurt looked up, and up, and up. Some of those platforms were, like, as high as the Tower in Kinley! Thousands of feet up! Higher than that! It was impossible!

"No way," he said, crossing his arms. "No way."

For all that his teacher was really fun, she could be a really hard taskmaster at times.

"You're not getting anything else until you finish this course."

She closed her eyes and swallowed. Kurt sucked in a breath, involuntarily.

"Do you want your mother to be proud of you?"

Kurt set his feet into the first stance and leaped.

And fell.

And leaped again.

* * *

"Holly," Will said. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

As Kurt's stepmother watched his progress with a concerned eye, her wingshot expanded, Kurt's stepfather took his teacher aside to talk to her.

Kurt watched them from the highest platform, trying to read lips. They seemed to be getting argumentative.

He battled with himself, half-wanting to go down there and distract his stepfather so that he wouldn't take him away from Miss Holly, and at the same time wanting to keep out of the fight. His time on the streets just taught him that getting into unnecessary fights was a good way to get hurt.

Still...

He closed his eyes and leapt, whirling in mid air, his limbs crossing over each other's.

"Will!" Terri gasped from where she was watching, her main rocket flaring in alarm and lifting her off the ground.

Will Schuester turned around and snapped his gaze up, to where Kurt seemed to float through the air without wings. His next comment about safety died, unuttered, on his lips.

Kurt spun, boneless, his momentum carrying over two platforms, before he landed safely on another. Under his impact the platform swayed from side to side, but Kurt counteracted it, leaping off it the moment it settled, into a full, gravity-defying forward flip.

"That's his true style, Will," Holly said quietly beside him. "Believe me. After his mother..."

"Kurt is not his mother," Will said, his smile polite but nothing more. "And this goddamn foolish stunt could cost him his life!"

"You can't coddle him forever," Holly said, her gaze piercing. "Let loose. Live a little, Will."

"The tournaments are over now, Holly," Will said, trying to impress on her how stupid she had been, to force a twelve year old into the danceset, as if those killer games were still at their height. "I wanted to save Kurt from that life..."

"You can't," she said, blowing strands of hair out of her face. "But you can try. I'll make sure he can survive, at least."

"Do you know what you're doing?" Will said. 'This time?' his eyes asked.

She looked at him, so different from the hedonistic, purposeless waif he had been teammates with years and years ago.

"Do I know what I'm doing?" She met Will's eyes steadily. "Yes."

* * *

Kurt relished the feel of flying through midair, the flips and kicks and spins, relived the feeling of that entire routine in his memory. The ship shuddered again, and Sue Sylvester's magnified voice echoed through the ship.

"ALL HANDS, ON DECK. CHEERIOS, PAIR OFF AND GET READY FOR LAUNCH. WORLD DOMINATION, ETA TEN MINUTES."

Eleven minutes, really.

* * *

_Eleven minutes to go._

* * *

In the instant before the missile detonated, Artie's life flashed through his eyes.

Everything centered on his accident. But despite the sheer despair he had after that, his happiest memories were because of his accident, and how his friends and family had come through for him.

Mike, who he'd once taught to dance, binding his legs to put his considerable dancing genius into figuring out a way to move without his legs, a way to use wingshots without his legs. The funniest moment of his life was when Mike had finally figured out how to front-flip, wingshot-assisted, without using his legs at all. Midway through the flip, his wingshot activated the wrong way. Artie had watched in mounting hilarity as Mike flew straight ahead, past two apartment blocks, all upside down and with the most comical look on his face. Tina pulled him down before he got too out of control.

Tina.

Oh, Tina.

She'd never known him before the accident. The first time she saw him and Mike, he was in bed, watching the readouts on his hospital screen. He still remembered - he remembered Mike, his head bowed, praying to all the seventy-five heavens and hells that Artie would recover, the routine words backed by emphasis and force. She'd come in to see her grandfather, he recalled, and had stopped outside their door.

"It'll get better," she'd said.

And it did.

Oh, Tina.

Matt Rutherford, one of his best friends before his parents shifted him beneath the security blackout of one of the Outer Districts. Last they'd all heard, he'd become a guard on the outskirts of the City. Despite what he'd done he was still -

Something within him pinged, and it wasn't the readouts on his heart or his legs. He'd never see Matt again.

Burt Hummel, who just lost his son, watching him with the most content smile Artie would ever see, connecting his legs to the capsule, fitting him with the wingshot that he would wear for the rest of the days of his life.

Droming. All the rush of it, all the fear and the longing and -

Mike - Tina - Matt -

Thank you-

* * *

_Eight minutes._

* * *

"Now, now, now!" Captain Sylvester roared, and Quinn sprinted toward the edge, her gauntlets flaring once, twice, her main rocket materializing a column of semi-solid flame. Pushing off the launching pad with muscled thighs, Quinn spiralled up through the air, using her rotation to scan her situation, 360 degrees.

Guard tower, north by northwest referenced from the ship, bearing three-one-five degrees, positive thirty-two degrees on the Z scale. Suppressing fire erupted from the posts, a mix of concussive shells and lasers, and Quinn began evasive maneuvers. Her squad juked about, dodging the scream of the shells as they passed and the wash of heat from the lasers.

Out of the corner of her eye Quinn saw one of her command do a thoroughly complicated flip they had recently learned from the Prisoner and dodge three shots aimed directly at her.

Where she would have resented it, before, especially since Captain Sylvester was watching, now she bared her teeth in a triumphant grin. "Good dodge, Lesley!"

Lesley shot her a smile, then flamed in the direction of the guard tower, making a trio of shots count before swerving off.

"After Lesley!" Quinn shouted. "Target and break! Pair one!"

* * *

Klaxons sounded.

In the middle of the main security compound, Matt Rutherford rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. His pallet was hard and his back ached. The steel walls were cold. And for some reason, everything was red and there was this annoying noise...Mike had said, once, that he slept like the dead. Apparently he woke like that, too. His mind was just sluggishly beginning to work. They were in the overdrome today, but he was on shift, just an easy one at midday to get his feet wet. What-why-

"Rutherford! On your feet! Attackers! You're on the announcement board! You're trained, right?"

"I'm going solo?" Matt's eyes snapped open and he rushed to get his uniform and regulation harness on.

"Not enough people! Get!" His lieutenant ran out of the door at full trot, the fastest he'd ever seen his lieutenant move.

"Shit!" he muttered, forcing his arm through the harness and boosting out his window, heading for the announcement center.

His main booster sputtered out halfway, and Matt cursed, reforming his regulation gauntlets so that they provided the maximum power. He turned his fall into a glide, thanking Artie in his mind for being disabled. They'd all gotten secondhand wingshots to help him out, even if their wingshots were pieces of shit which got them all into every plausible impossible situation.

He'd lost control of both gauntlets due to flying accidentally into a wireless DC current, had the gyroscope on the main rocket fixed on one particular orientation and never stopped boosting, had girls slap him because his boost had delayed, and then taken off at exactly the wrong time and he'd gotten a peek up their skirts. Granted, that was something that Matt wouldn't have minded repeating - and would've faked, if he'd had a chance. A moment later he wrenched his mind away from those kinds of thoughts, like any other thoughts of his old friends. Fun, fun, he'd only cared about fun, unlike them.

He regretted that now. And he wished -

Matt turned his fall into a roll onto the transceiver's outside deck, shaking the gauntlets off his hands. The regulation harness, made so that it didn't sync with individuals too much, responded belatedly, the gears creeping up the wires around his arms, tooth by tooth.

He ran into the automated office, and manually overrode the main announcement board by jacking in with a wire.

* * *

The announcement post near them crackled, and Mercedes looked up in shock, bracing herself. The two lovebirds standing near the window hadn't noticed yet - actually, judging by the accent and carriage, she wasn't sure that the girl knew about the warning system. Finn was oblivious, obviously. Mercedes sighed and shook her head. That boy.

The buzz of static echoed through the overdrome, where the large cloud of bubbles from the explosion was only just dissipating.

* * *

Kkkkkrrrrrrr

"-paging Wendy Jefferson, would you please report to the Theater to claim your lottery prize, paging We-ALL CITIZENS! PIRATE ATTACK! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! MOBILIZE! ALL CITIZENS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! PIRATE ATTACK! MOBILIZE! ALL CITIZENS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! PIRATE ATTACK! MOBILIZE! ALL CITIZENS-"

The announcement posts around the city activated all at once, whether they were in the air or near buildings. From their widely varying messages, they all synchronised at once, and Matt Rutherford's voice blasted out from every post. Citizens broke off from their work. As one, the City looked out their windows.

A great shape, a large shadow, blocked out the grandiose sun.

Propellers spinning lazily, smaller shapes of individual flyers could be made out, backlit by sky the color of freshly spilled blood.

The rising flagship of Sue Sylvester, Captain of the Jean Sylvester, the last Stallion-class airship from the Fall From Grace.

"What is she thinking?" Kurt whispered to the glass. "She can't take on a City with only this ship. The Cheerios aren't big enough, won't last long enough against Kinley."

He blinked. His eyes narrowed, and he squinted past the clouds. That wasn't a Cheerio -

Who -

* * *

Klaxons sounded.

The figure in silver was already moving, the tight body armor emphasizing his muscles as the figure sprinted through the corridors. Fleet armor and rank cascaded down his shoulders and melded into the ornate gauntlets of an independent operative, who slid down his visor and leapt off the launching pad.

He fell the four storeys needed for his gauntlets to activate and took off, into the golden sun.

Behind him, Fleet assembled.

"Who, Silver?" the operative's communicator crackled.

"Sylvester," the figure said, his voice velvet and warm. "Targetting Kinley."

"...Shit," the tower said, and a flurry of men broke out on the deck, the massive Fleet airships beginning to undock.

"Language," the figure said, before his gauntlets flared, and took him out of Fleet's private channelspace.

* * *

"ALL CITIZENS! PIRATE ATTACK! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! MOBILIZE! ALL CITIZENS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! PIRATE ATTACK! MOBILIZE! ALL CITIZENS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! PIRATE ATTACK! MOBILIZE! ALL CITIZENS-"

* * *

Matt had left the recording to play incessantly, and individually directed the streams of evacuees toward the bunkers in the middle of the city, under the heftiest of guard. The littlest children and the oldest of men and women unwilling or unable to fight stayed in their homes under the watchful eyes of their family, spreading it out so that if Sylvester captured the city she'd have to find all of the families individually.

"Red Four," he said, "Move to Sector Two-Five-Alpha. There's a blockage on Mulhober Street, and there're dependents in the area."

"Understood," the emotionless voice said, and on Matt's screen the icon for Red Four blinked over Sector Two-Four-Beta, before beginning to move.

Matt kept an eye on the outskirts of town, where the icons for the Cheerios had begun to multiply, and outnumber the guards.

He saw Outpost Eight-Two vanish off his screen.

That...Iris, one of his ex-girlfriends, had been assigned to Eight-Two.

Matt buried his regret deep within him, and focused on the minute icons on his screen. They all trusted him to do his job...

* * *

_Four minutes._

* * *

"Strange," Ken said. "Fleet hasn't responded yet."

"Give them a little more time," his wife said.

"It's been four days," Ken said. His mouth worked into a snarl. "Something must have come up."

"But what?"

Ken stared straight ahead. "_Pirates_."

His wife laughed under her breath. "What else? It's Fleet, after all."

"No," Ken said. "Not pirates,_ Pirates_."

"What?"

"After the Fall From Grace, during that chaotic period, when Fleet was first founded," Ken said. "There were a few_ Pirates_ who were tournamenters. Sue Sylvester was only the most famous of them. There were others, as well, and they flocked to her banner."

His gaze went blank, and the channel on the wall flipped without his touching it.

"All units to Kinley," the Fleet operator commanded, as klaxons blared behind him. "All units to Kinley!"

"Kinley," Ken said, and remembered a man named Will Schuester. And how his wife had looked at that undeniably charismatic, smooth-talking wretch, like Will Schuester was better than him.

"Kinley." He bared his teeth in a snarl.

* * *

That was the biggest fucking airship Puck had ever seen in his life.

Who the hell built that damn thing?

Puck came to a standstill, floating upright relative to the land beneath him. He'd been flying for days and days and days and days and...okay, four days, but still, a long fucking time.

Beyond the massive ship, a City loomed. Outposts, buoys, and platforms spun in mid-air, exchanging lasers and shots that distorted the air and clouds with what looked like very fit girls with tight uniforms on. Puck smirked and zoomed in on them.

Yep, very tight uniforms. Good stuff.

It was loud. It was so fucking loud. Screams and harsh cries, shells being fired in massive concussive sonic booms, a crackle of announcements from the City itself, played from the few loudspeakers that were this far out. Lasers hissed by, silent as death itself, but brought with them heat. Past the uniforms, Puck watched the battle in interest. It was like watching one of the tournaments on widescreen on his family's airship, except live. And it was magnificent.

A shot screamed past.

Puck jerked, and spun away from it.

This was starting to look...awfully familiar.

"Fuck," he said. "Not again."

Then, mournfully, "Pirates? But they're so good-looking..."

His eyes, still on magnification, tracked over the ship and past it. They tracked back.

There was someone in a room near the underbelly of the ship! Some kind of girl - and terribly good looking, too. She had on this expression of despair...

Puck turned his head.

Maybe it was a boy? Really feminine boy, though, that.

* * *

_Two minutes to four.

* * *

_

"ALL CITIZENS! PIRATE ATTACK! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! MOBILIZE! ALL CITIZENS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! PIRATE ATTACK! MOBILIZE! ALL CITIZENS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! PIRATE ATTACK! MOBILIZE! ALL CITIZENS-"

"Would somebody shut that thing up?"

A passing Cheerio obliterated the loudspeaker.

"Brittany," Captain Sylvester said. "Earn your keep."

"Yes, Captain?" Brittany asked.

"Take out the transceiver for that message."

"What's a transce-"

"Shooting!" Santana said, hurriedly pulling Brittany behind her. "Your will be done, Captain Sylvester."

Captain Sylvester nodded. "See that it is."

* * *

Freedom. What good was it if not everyone was free?

Maybe it was a boy. But no one should be locked up, like that.

Puck shook his head fiercely to rid his eyes of magnification.

Flicking his gaze around to make sure that no one was looking, he flamed toward the airship, and toward the girl. Boy. Whatever.

* * *

"Tall, spiky looking building between the two floating rectangles," Santana said, peering out at the City, her goggles on 30x magnification. "The one with blue lights on every level."

"I see it," Brittany said, staring into her scope intently.

"Wind, forty-two klicks at two-one-three degrees relative to our orientation and negative zero-four-one."

"Understood," Brittany said.

The screams and cries around them from the wrecked outposts and dying guards seemed very loud even as Santana concentrated.

"Now," she said.

The rifle extending from Brittany's right arm cracked once.

A diluted milk-white arrowhead blazed from the barrel, leaping the distance in a millisecond.

* * *

"ALL CITIZENS! PIRATE ATTACK! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! MOBILIZE! ALL CITIZENS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! PIRATE ATTACK! MOBILIZE! ALL CITIZENS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! PIRATE ATTACK! MOBILIZE! ALL CITIZENS-"

* * *

Mercedes was in her element, herding the evacuees forming up outside her door inside and down the long, fortified staircase, to the bunker buried inside their artificial hill. Finn helped the frightened children when he could, while the new girl kept some of the loud adults busy. Mercedes could see her fear in her eyes, but she kept going. An unspoken respect bubbled up, somewhere in her heart. Mercedes had never trusted people easily, and didn't intend to start now.

"I don't even know your name," Rachel said to the large, comforting man beside her, who dealt with the children with steady hands and a ready smile. She touched her lips, the kiss still fresh on her mind.

"It's Finn," the man said, and smiled at her.

Rachel felt her knees go weak, and mustered up what she could to stay on her feet. She wouldn't be weak, oh, no.

"And you?" Finn said.

"Rachel," the highly attractive woman said, biting her lip.

Hell. He wanted to bite her lip. And then kiss her. And then -

Those kinds of thoughts weren't appropriate while he was still herding children, dammit.

* * *

"Match cancelled," the automatic voice said, but the Homedogs had already made their way back to their launch canal.

"Artie," Tina gasped, her capsule descending. "Are you alright?"

"What sort of question is that?" Mike asked, linking his capsule to Artie's. "Artie, speak to us if you can. C'mon, Artie, you can do it..."

"Artie!" Tina shouted. "Please!"

In his capsule, Artie slumped, a line of blood running from his forehead.

* * *

"ALL CITIZENS! PIRATE ATTACK! THIS IS NUH-"

* * *

Glass exploded.

The force of the blast hurled Matt out of his seat. The concussive force exploded all of the screens near him and shut down the computers, the powerful hum of the transceiver dying in a split second. Everything muffled, instantly. Matt clapped his hands to his ears in pain and took them away, watching the blood pool in his dark palms.

A long piece of shrapnel pierced his legs and pinned him to his computer screen.

Matt Rutherford had time. Lots and lots of time, mostly filled with pain, in which to appreciate the irony, and his own personal hell, given what he had done in regards to Artie.

The walls shook. Twisted steel rods showed through the large holes in the wall.

* * *

"Good work, Brittany," Captain Sylvester said, watching the tip of the transceiver tower tilt over and fall off, the long steel rods smashing to the earth below them.

Countless pathetic people would be lying on the ground, groaning. Then the City would be left with less countless pathetic people that she'd have to systematically kill, one by one. Saved her time and effort, really.

Brittany beamed. "Thank you, Captain Sylvester! Um, Captain Sylvester, I think that the-"

Santana clasped her around her waist and threw them both off the side of the deck.

* * *

_One minute to four._


End file.
